1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus having a function of sharing electronic data with a plurality of users, as well as a control method therefor and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been an information processing apparatus for receiving electronic data to be printed from an external apparatus and reserving the received electronic data therein, wherein the electronic data is effectively utilized by a plurality of users referring to and sharing the reserved electronic data.
In such an information processing apparatus, to efficiently collect the electronic data, the electronic data received from the external apparatus is automatically accumulated in the information processing apparatus. To enable a user to easily obtain the desired electronic data, when reserving the electronic data, attribute information related to the electronic data is automatically registered in association with the electronic data in the information processing apparatus. Thereby, the user can retrieve the desired electronic data by using the attribute information as a key.
However, in such an information processing apparatus, since the attribute information related to the received electronic data is automatically registered, it is possible to wrongly share, with an indefinite number of the users, the highly confidential and secure electronic data. Particularly, when it is possible to refer to the reserved electronic data through a network, the above problem becomes more serious. To deal with such a problem, it is considered to input a security protection code when reserving the electronic data; however, work for inputting the security protection code is complicated.
In addition, the information processing apparatus has been proposed, of determining whether or not information such as “duplicate prohibited” and “for internal use only” is included in the electronic data, setting up a flag in a security protection item of a code information part according to a result of this determination, and restricting to retrieve and output the electronic data according to the set up flag (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H05-189538).
However, according to the above information processing apparatus, as long as the received electronic data does not include the information such as “duplicate prohibited” and “for internal use only”, it is impossible to restrict the electronic data to be accessed, and it is possible to wrongly share highly confidential and secure electronic data with an indefinite number of users.